


With Heads Held High

by Solrosfalt



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken | Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Shin Monshou no Nazo | Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
Genre: Ceremonies, F/F, Post-Canon, Promises, Slightly angsty fluff, Vulnerability, not Princess of Dawn-adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solrosfalt/pseuds/Solrosfalt
Summary: Minerva stands tall when she is surrounded. Be they enemy or ally, she never bows her head. Though when hidden away with the one who holds her love, she allows for her heart to soften.----This is the full version of the fic written for the RallySpectrum zine of 2020!
Relationships: Minerva/Paora | Palla
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	With Heads Held High

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the lovely companion art piece:  
> https://twitter.com/NicMakesStuff/status/1341549774009331714?s=20

Minerva stands tall when she is surrounded. Be they enemy or ally, she never bows her head.

She stands surrounded now, hundreds of eyes upon her as she points her sword to the heavens. The hall is colored red with the banners of Macedon hanging down from the ceiling in orderly rows. With her armor edged by gold, Minerva radiates the colors of Macedon just like the banners do.

The occasion is solemn and serious, so Minerva’s face does not move. The remnants of the war lie before her within the last survivors of Macedon’s formerly glorious army, and the row of knights ready to be given the highest honor diminishes slowly. Minerva is certain many of these knights do not want her blessing, but her brother’s. Even so, she does not bow, and she does not halt – a new military must be created, sworn to Minerva and Minerva alone.

Palla is the last to kneel. She walks with elegance, her every movement as calculated as her strikes with the spear. Her armor is bright silver, her tunic beneath the same shade of birch green as her hair, but the shawl over her neck is red as blood, and red as Macedon. Palla’s hair is falling freely over her shoulders, a choice Minerva does not understand, but it is a sight that tugs at her chest. Releasing one’s hair is a show of softness, of weakness; but Palla is neither soft nor weak. As she kneels before the throne, she radiates both confidence and humility.

Palla bends her head. Minerva does not. With the tip of the sword resting upon Palla’s shoulder she repeats what she has already said over and over that day.

“Do you swear to serve me as your Queen, and none other?”

“I do swear.” Palla’s voice rings clear and true over the silent hall. The onlookers have grown impatient, but none dares be so rude and interrupt, the respect to the crown that her brother instilled still lingers within them.

“Do you vow to never turn away from your service, to reap the lives that would take mine, and forfeit your own for the crown?”

“You have my vow,” Palla responds. “Now, and for as long as I live.”

“Then rise, Knight of Macedon.” Minerva removes her sword, and lets it rest at her side. “You shall serve as the guard of my life.”

That did not differ much from what Palla’s role had been before, but ceremony required Minerva state the purpose and placement of each knight, however tedious.

The rite disbands effortlessly. Minerva oversees it all, as the onlookers move like ripples beneath the banners of red and gold. Left alone, she can finally sheathe her sword, but she can still feel the shadows moving, listening. She looks over her shoulder to the room hidden behind the curtains falling from the canopy above the throne.

“Come with me,” Minerva urges, and Palla follows her. She would have done so unprompted, Minerva is sure, but she wants an excuse to say something other than the endless repeat of a knight’s vow.

Hidden behind the secret doors, Minerva exhales. The room is small, almost too small for her tall stature, really only meant as a storage space. She has hidden here before, when she was a child playing with her siblings, and in later years when she needed somewhere to cry.

Now she is merely looking for a place to breathe, with no eyes other than Palla’s upon her. Although there is worry in Palla’s gaze, an unshakable feeling spreading over to Minerva that this whole procedure had been nothing but a useless show in front of people whose minds would not change.

“It was a fine ceremony,” Palla says, her hand on her shoulder where the tip of the sword had rested. "Although while the words of fidelity are pretty, they are also easily broken."

Palla’s hair is slightly static from the walk through the curtains. She pats it down, still not breaking Minerva’s gaze.

Minerva had formerly not believed herself available for the possibility of falling in love, but after years of Palla’s presence, the determined steel in her frowns, the warm light of her gaze and the way the wind caught in her hair on a leisurely flight… Minerva had found herself longing to have her at her side. Wanting her fingers to intertwine with hers.

Minerva does not bow her head when she is surrounded, but now, she is not. She leans her head down, her hand carefully placed on Palla’s cheek.

“The vows serve their purpose as public poetry,” Minerva says. “But spoken from you, I know them to be true. There is none I would trust more with my life."

Palla bows her head in return, her hand sliding over her chest in a quiet salute. “Everything I have to give, it is yours. My heart too, for as long as you want it.”

Minerva rests her forehead against Palla’s. She cannot _not_ imagine a future where she would not choose her, and for all the knight vow’s talk of sacrifice – Queen or not, Minerva would still choose Palla even if it meant her own life’s end.

“I’ll want nothing else for as long as I breathe,” Minerva answers. “That is my vow to you.”

It might be impossible, and it might just be easily broken words, but Palla smiles. Her eyes remain closed as she leans her head into Minerva’s hand.

“Does it suit a liege to make a vow to her knight?”

Minerva lets go, changes her stance so Palla rests in her arms instead. Their armor plates chafe against each other and presses against Minerva’s skin, but she is used to it and she wants to keep Palla close, even as their uniforms try to stop them.

“It suits me to make this vow to you,” she promises. “I would like for us to not be knight and queen in here. Let me just be Minerva.”

“Minerva,” Palla repeats, the sound of her name on her tongue so effortless and beautiful. “Yes. I believe I can oblige to that.”

Minerva holds her, a moment that lasts in a separate eternity.

The war may be over, but battles of a quieter kind still reign within the walls of Macedon Castle. Hidden behind the canopy of the throne, two hearts beat as one, yet to return to a world of deceit and schemes, for they remain still shrouded in the peace of a beloved’s embrace.


End file.
